I'm rather new only having about 3 weeks of experience, I looked over many different pools and I liked the idea of the merged mining. I think I would like to see a few more coins added if they can be, I know many out there are worthless, but then a few years ago bitcoin wasn't worth the paper it was printed on either.

Is this round taking so long due to an increase in difficulty or just bad luck?

The merged Alt-Coins payout fine right now, and if you haven't, you should really look into Namecoin and Devcoin. NMC can act as a decentralized DNS and much more.

However, I've seen long rounds like this before, it could easily be difficulty. Normally, I've seen 9hr rounds and less, and been through a few other long ones as well.

It's worth it though. Plus the Dev. Is really nice and takes good care of the pool.

I had read about name and devcoin and thought they were interesting and the secondary DNS system could be useful in the future with the way some government types think the internet should be tapped in every way possible to prevent bad guy of the day to operate unrestricted, don't worry about all the info we collect on you, if you're not bad guy of the day you have nothing to hide.

I'm rather new only having about 3 weeks of experience, I looked over many different pools and I liked the idea of the merged mining. I think I would like to see a few more coins added if they can be, I know many out there are worthless, but then a few years ago bitcoin wasn't worth the paper it was printed on either.

Is this round taking so long due to an increase in difficulty or just bad luck?

For a coin to be added it needs to have the ability to be merge mined added by the coin developer. There aren't many around. Huntercoin and CoiledCoin are the two coins I know of that are merge mineable that the pool current doesn't mine. CoiledCoin has no exchange, interest or maintainer that I'm aware of. Huntercoin could be added. It's a bit of a resource hog so I'd need to do some minor server changes to do that.

The round is taking a long time in terms of elapsed time due to our low hash rate. It's taking a long time in terms of 'number of shares'/CDF due to bad luck. The pool is not near it's longest round ever in terms of CDF or luck. It is currently about 3x difficulty in number of shares done. The pool has 8x difficulty before. Let's hope we don't have that again!

The 'Best Hash' is the best hash solution during the last couple of days. This gives an idea of how 'close' we've been to finding a block. Almost, but not quite, a namecoin block. A fair bit away from a bitcoin one.

5% is still okay in my book, but that's about the limit. LiteGuardian does 2% PPS, and it's not doing any hybrid.

The reserves a pool needs to handle the swings of PPS are too much for it to be a consideration. Combine that with the block withholding attack risk that can drive the pool bankrupt it's not worth it.

I like mmpool with or without PPS, I'm just giving my opinion on PPS in general.

Oh, well yea, I agreed with you 100% with PPS in general.

Personally, I think PPS rates should be trailing; based on the pool's average rate at which they find blocks for one Difficulty Term.

I would first set my break-even, minimum PPS %, then choose an arbitrary number + % as the first control term. After the Network Difficulty adjusts, get the avg. Time between blocks on network and between blocks found in pool. I would see how the pools avg. Hashrate changed +/- then adjust the PPS n% higher, or lower.

Of course you would need an upper bound limit pool miners would agree too, but adjusting the PPS between let's say 1.25% and 5.05% could average out nicely for Pool managers and Devoted Miners.

My math is 'Pseudo Math' I would need time to write an actual formula, but that's my idea.

PPS with a variable fee based on luck. Interesting.

This is a lousy idea and just as hoppable as the old proportional type payment in disguise. If you have a week of good luck all your miners will jump across while the pps rates are high. As soon as luck is bad they'll all run away. You can bet your bottom dollar as soon as the hordes are aware you're offering this they'll abuse it. It still leaves you wide open for a block withhold attack too.

5% is still okay in my book, but that's about the limit. LiteGuardian does 2% PPS, and it's not doing any hybrid.

The reserves a pool needs to handle the swings of PPS are too much for it to be a consideration. Combine that with the block withholding attack risk that can drive the pool bankrupt it's not worth it.

I like mmpool with or without PPS, I'm just giving my opinion on PPS in general.

Oh, well yea, I agreed with you 100% with PPS in general.

Personally, I think PPS rates should be trailing; based on the pool's average rate at which they find blocks for one Difficulty Term.

I would first set my break-even, minimum PPS %, then choose an arbitrary number + % as the first control term. After the Network Difficulty adjusts, get the avg. Time between blocks on network and between blocks found in pool. I would see how the pools avg. Hashrate changed +/- then adjust the PPS n% higher, or lower.

Of course you would need an upper bound limit pool miners would agree too, but adjusting the PPS between let's say 1.25% and 5.05% could average out nicely for Pool managers and Devoted Miners.

My math is 'Pseudo Math' I would need time to write an actual formula, but that's my idea.

PPS with a variable fee based on luck. Interesting.

This is a lousy idea and just as hoppable as the old proportional type payment in disguise. If you have a week of good luck all your miners will jump across while the pps rates are high. As soon as luck is bad they'll all run away. You can bet your bottom dollar as soon as the hordes are aware you're offering this they'll abuse it. It still leaves you wide open for a block withhold attack too.

Good points. I wish I could record my thoughts. I've got some ideas, and will work something out tomorrow...

What about something based on on the longer your mining at the pool the higher the PPS rate is. so if you just start its 5% of the normal pps rate. Then after 3 days its 100% or something.

You could give the extra payouts to the miners who have been there longer; that would work as a sort of referral program. If you get new people to join who are earning less than full PPS, then the existing miners get some benefit for finding new hash power to join the pool.

Granted it wouldn't be directly related to the people like the referral program, but perhaps that would make it less cutthroat for affiliate links like mmpool mentioned they didn't want affiliate links being blasted everywhere. We could just promote for the general good of the pool, and not be as concerned about direct compensation.

To be fair, I should admit I'm one of the long time higher hashers here, so feel free to call bullshit on me and say I'm being unfair, but I promote this pool every time I talk to anyone about mining at the meetup I run, and when I'm talking to future miners at bars, on the bus, etc....

Coinbase for selling BTCs or Vircurex for trading alt cryptocurrencies like DOGEsCoinNinja for exploring the blockchain.PM me with any questions on these sites! Happy to help!

Why would people withhold blocks, though? I mean, it doesn't hurt them, but it doesn't help them in any way, either. It's just being a dick.

Imagine a pool that is PPS only. Miners don't need to send solutions that solve blocks at all as they get paid per share. In fact they are incentivized not too. If blocks are found, difficulty increases and mining gets harder. So by not submitting the winning block they prevent difficulty from rising just that little bit. And they still get paid. It's win-win for them. Terrible for the pool of course. So it's also a useful attack to kill a rival pool.